dalke

To share a related river issue, a few years back the city of Gothenburg, Sweden switched how they allocate students to a school. It used to be the student would get a school in their specific section of the city ("statsdel"). The new one lets you choose a school, specified in rank order, even if it's in another part of the city.

You could select from a list of schools, with distances given as straight-line distance (or perhaps as route distance? I can't tell from the articles I've read), which meant some of the schools across the river were considered "close".

In one case, a student had a 45 minute commute to get to school, due to waiting for the ferry. The parents listed it as their 5th choice, based on the stated distance. The more critical factor should be travel time, but the computer system doesn't take mass transit schedules into account.

As a contributing factor, the list of schools did not include the name of the stadsdel in the list of schools. This extra sort of reverse geocoding - trivially available - might have helped them realize the issue.

One news story about it, in Swedish: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/kaos-i-antagningssyst...

I tried loading 2PLV (by id and by PDB file) and 9PTI (by id) but nothing happened.

LibreWolf on macOS, if it matters.

This 1981 Nova episode starts with Nixon's radio address about the American Right of Privacy. "A system that fails to respect its citizens' right to privacy fails to respect the citizens themselves."

It discusses cryptography, including public key cryptography, describes worries about the possibility for abuse, the use of personalized data for targeted political mailings and marketing, and the Minitel introduction on Saint-Malo. There's also a staged pen test and a kid who get caught breaking into a university computer.

One scene mentions how people are worried about the tracking possible by using ATM. The banking rep says that would require computers which are 1,000 times more powerful.

You think they do cache the data but don't use it?

For what it's worth, mj12bot.com is even worse. They pull down every wheel every two or three days, even though something like chemfp-3.4-cp35-cp35m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl hasn't changed in years - it's for Python 3.5, after all.

I see ChatGPT's bots pull down all of my Python wheels every couple of weeks.

Wheels that haven't changed in years, with a "Last-Modified" and "ETag" that haven't changed.

The only thing that makes sense to me is it's cheaper them to re-pull and re-analyze the data than to develop a cache.

I'm pretty sure:

"I have to review our mitigations several times per day to keep that number from getting any higher. When I do have time to work on something else, often I have to drop it when all of our alarms go off because our current set of mitigations stopped working. ... it’s not long before we’re complaining about the bots and asking if the other has cracked the code to getting rid of them once and for all."

means that no one has managed it.

I have a small static site. I haven't touched it in a couple of years.

Even then, I see bot after bot, pulling down about 1/2 GB per day.

Like, I distribute Python wheels from my site, with several release versions X several Python versions.

I can't understand why ChatGPT, PetalBot, and other bots want to pull down wheels, much less the full contents when the header shows it hasn't changed:

  Last-Modified: Thu, 25 May 2023 09:07:25 GMT
  ETag: "8c2f67-5fc80f2f3b3e6"

Well, I know the answer to the second question, as DeVault's title highlights - it's cheaper to re-read the data and re-process the content than set up a local cache.

Externalizing their costs onto me.

I know 1/2 GB/day is not much. It's well under the 500 GB/month I get from my hosting provider. But again, I have a tiny site with only static hosting, and as far as I can tell, the vast majority of transfers from my site are worthless.

Just like accessing 'expensive endpoints like git blame, every page of every git log, and every commit in every repo' seems worthless.

> such that they have restricted what a citizen can do with it

My grandfather, born in Canada and later naturalized as a US citizen, got his ham ticket back in the 1960s, but, as he wrote: "This was O.K. for one year but to renew & become general I would have to obtain more than just a US passport; It would be necessary to get a certificate of citizenship. This took years and during those years I landed up in the Dom. Republic & got my Ham ticket there without it, HI3XRD."

He later moved to Miami. When Hurricane David came through the D.R. in 1979, he was one of the ham volunteers who helped handle communications from the island.

Oh, and he never got Extra because while he could manage 13 wpm for General or Advanced, he couldn't manage the 20 wpm for Extra.

I found an error in a published version of TAOCP, 2nd edition I think, with improvements on Sieve of Eratosthenes. I was so excited, then found it was already listed in the errata.

I later got a check for identifying a minor issue with the early history of superimposed coding. I happen to have copies of the relevant patent case containing examples predating Mooers' randomized superimposed coding.

("Happened to" because I had visited the Mooers archive at the Charles Babbage Institute in Minnesota to research some of the early history of chemical information management. Mooers is one of the "fathers" of information retrieval, and in fact coined the term "information retrieval" at a chemistry conference.)

In January our city switched from a web portal to an app-only system.

Last fall I was working on getting a username+password access to the portal, since the students and teachers don't need BankID to log in. I was using my son's login to read the weekly newsletters.

At the time I warned our skolnämnden that I would not be getting a smartphone. They switched to app-only, making it impossible for me to get info or let the school know about absences or late arrive.

It took talking with the teachers, with fritids, and the principal to work out an email-based option.

When people ask for examples, I point to a NYT report of a man in San Francisco whose young son had redness on his penis and complained about it feeling sore. The pediatrician asked for some photos to make a diagnosis online. Google flagged it as child porn and notified the police. The police said it wasn't, but Google declined to restore service.

"A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal.", https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

In India, Google locked an engineer from Gujarat out of his Google account because it contained explicit content potentially involving child abuse or exploitation. The engineer believes it's because the account contain images of him as a child being bathed by his grandmother.

"HC notice to Google India after engineer loses access Gmail, Google Drive, and more over childhood photo labelled 'porn'" https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/hc-...

I use these examples specifically because many in my government want "Chat Control", where snitchware scans messages for child porn and the like, and notifies the police. It will be full of false positives like these, especially if the scanning software continues to be built by puritanical American companies.

Another class is people who the US deems to be a security threat. How long will it be until the US extends its sanctions against the ICC by ordering Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and Google to shut down the accounts for the ICC and anyone involved in their genocide investigation, work and personal?

Here in Sweden, it took me about 5 months but I was able to get the school to send me info by email. They switched to an app-only system, and I have no smartphone.

Setting aside any issues related to privacy or US corporate control over my life, I'm one of the people who doesn't use a smartphone because the temptation to be online, at the drop of the hat, is too much to resist.

I compare it to being like someone who needs to lose weight, so keeps all chocolate out of the house, while everyone seems to expect me to have a luscious bar of high quality chocolate with me all the time, just sitting there, begging me to eat it.

There is an ongoing debate about smartphones at school, and the addiction and distraction they can be for kids. I think my strongest argument is that the addiction and distraction don't simply disappear for adults, and there was no way they were going to force me to get a smartphone.

I don't think that would work for those with a smartphone, but it's a crack keeping an alternative open.

> “It feels good,” Dettmers said when I asked him how it felt to have contributed to what some are calling a “Sputnik moment” in AI.

I'll present an alternative narrative for the "Sputnik moment" trope, as described by someone who lived through it.

In "Introduction of Computers in Chemical Structure Information Systems, or What Is Not Recorded in the Annals", once easily available at https://www.asis.org/History/12-lynch.pdf but now only in archive.org at https://web.archive.org/web/20130702201907/https://www.asis....

"There were great stirrings in science information at that time because of Sputnik, the challenge to the United States from the Soviet Union in October 1957. Sputnik’s beep-beep tones took the world totally by surprise. When the dust had settled, it became apparent that the Soviets had published their intentions in the open literature, but the science information system in the West was in disarray. The system had not been considered sufficiently important nor was it well enough funded to keep up with the vast increases in the numbers of scientists employed and publishing in the postwar period."

In this interpretation, the issue isn't publishing in the open, but rather who is paying attention to what's published.

> At this time, Bloom filter was not even called Bloom filter. In his paper, Douglas calls it a “superimposed code scheme”.

A Bloom filter is a specific type of superimposed code.

Calvin Mooers developed random (1) superimposed coding in his Master's thesis at MIT back in the 1940s, directly influenced by Shannon's work.

Bourne's superb 1963 book "Methods of Information Handling" gives details of the mathematics.

I've no doubt Douglas knew about the broader technique, which, for example, the author of "The Large Data Base File Structure Dilemma" (1975) at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ci60001a005 described as "an old technique called super-imposed coding".

(1) The "random" is an important qualifier because there were superimposed codes predating Mooers, but they were not mathematically interesting or all that practically important.

I weep a little inside every time I pass the unstaffed school library.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But given silisili's lived experience of dealing with 30lb backpacks, chrisco255's statement about that being 'good for you' is simply not correct, unless perhaps that kid is a high school football player weighing 200+ lbs.

Also, only nerds and dweebs use both shoulder straps.

Rather, I don't think it's a simple matter of education, given that there are also social pressures involved.

If the bag is too heavy (especially if unbalanced, like carrying it on one shoulder) then the kid can cause back problems.

See https://scoliosisinstitute.com/heavy-backpacks/ for more details.

My eldest doesn't like the computers they have in grade 2 (in Sweden). He thinks the things installed on them are too boring and easy. He would rather read books.

Thing is, the school doesn't have a staff librarian any more. As I understand it, they got rid of that position as part of the cost shifting to switch to digital.

While if you don't want to sign a contract with a foreign IT company in order to access those government services online, you have a lot of extra work ahead of you which used to be a lot easier.

Like, my eldest's school stopped using paper notices two years ago, and this month will switch to an app-only notification system, while I have no smartphone and in any the government can't force me into a contract where I would give up privacy rights just to have a kid in school. ... I hope.

So, paper and in-person visits for me, and some online purchasing banks (Klarna) don't support non-BankID 2FA, and a regular transit card.

And as of yesterday, school messages sent by email. We'll see how that works out.

The mobile payment app Swish requires Android or iOS.

The electronic ID needed to access public services, etc. works best on Android or iOS, though there are macOS and MS Windows options.

Thank you. I am already on their list. I don't have the technical abilities to contribute to the project.

What advantage would that have over what my bank currently offers to kids? How does it address "I don't think he's yet able to keep track of a bank card, much less a smartphone from a company I don't trust."?

How will I, as a parent without a smartphone, manage my kids' account?

FWIW, I live two floors above the main branch in the city for my bank.

I have deep distrust of anything like frequent flier miles and store memberships as I know they are bribing me with my own money and/or building up a persona to try and sell me more, so seeing "RevPoints" marketing on their home page triggers alarm bells in my head. It means they are building on a system which is already extracting too much money from customers, so we need stronger regulations limiting the excess overhead.

Sitka lost their fiber optic link last summer. No internet, no cell phones, no texting, no credit cards. Lasted for days.

https://www.wrangellsentinel.com/story/2024/09/11/news/sitka... reports some of the consequences.

I have a friend of mine (here in Sweden) who is very bad at keeping track of the money in her account. She prefers using cash because that way show knows exactly what she has.

As for edge cases, the city I live in does provide a service to help retired people who have a bank account (and bank card) but no smartphone, and who need a way to pay for services like grocery delivery which are smartphone-only. (They have some method to turn it into a giro payment, but I don't know the details.)

I go to history events held monthly at the downtown library, in the afternoons. That means it's mostly retirees and me (it's an advantage of being self-employed and often, like now, working while at the library).

They ask for 20 kronor for fika. While the organizers accept Swish, the large majority of attendees pay in cash.

I am a Swedish citizen living in Sweden. I pay as much as I can in cash.

What the article didn't mention is the payments system Swish requires an Android or Apple phone, and the electronic ID mentioned requires one of those phone OSes or a Microsoft or Apple desktop OS.

There is no solution for those who don't want sign a contract with a US IT giant, or those who want better privacy, or those who only want to use free software. Remember too that every single one of those US companies is required to follow US surveillance laws.

Bank cards are an option (though several places are SWIFT-only), but they depend on having a bank account, and the banks depend on SWIFT, which the US controls.

Last year the US designated two white-supremacist Swedes as international terrorists, as well as their organization, which meant they all lost bank access, and therefore digital id. See https://www.etc.se/inrikes/efter-terrorklassningen-svenska-b... (requires subscription), translation here:

> One of the leaders classified as a terrorist, a 50-year-old man, name not given, says to [the local radio service] that his bank account and card have stopped working. He says he left [the white-supremacist organization] 1 and 1/2 years ago.

> "It's completely crazy [...] I haven't done any crime."

It doesn't matter if you agree with the classification or not. What's wrong is that Sweden has decided to use a system of electronic payments and identification which is so completely dependent on the US that a foreign country can have such intimate control over a Swedish citizen living in Sweden.

It doesn't even need to be terrorism. Google or Apple can decide to close your account at any time, without appeal. The Swedish courts cannot order them to re-enable it.

We know this from articles like "A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal" and closed his account, at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil... and "HC notice to Google India after engineer loses access Gmail, Google Drive, and more over childhood photo labelled 'porn'" https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/hc-...

Think about those two cases as the EU mulls over so-called "Chat Control", with strong support by the Swedish government.

Flip it over - the dependency on three large US companies makes it almost impossible to boycott those companies, no matter how bad they are or might be. And they are bad.

The lack of cash payment also limits what my kids can do on their own - much more than when I was a kid. Want to play mini-golf? Need a bank card or Swish. Want to go swimming? Need a bank card or Swish. At least the ice cream place accepts cash, but they don't provide change so you better have the exact amount.

Yes, kids can get a bank card, but while I'm fine giving my 8-year-old 100 kronor / $10 for a day out on his own, he still loses his library card, forgets his gloves, etc - I don't think he's yet able to keep track of a bank card, much less a smartphone from a company I don't trust.

And unlike a can with money, you can't look at a card to figure out how much is available.

Just because two things cause problems, that doesn't mean they are equally problematic.

Like, it took over a year to build the new storm sewer system in town. It caused problems, like having blocked off roads and sidewalks and construction noise.

Yet I wouldn't equate that to the systemic problems in the rail system caused by privatization while also over-funding the road network.

If I'm not mistaken, the decades of economic liberalism and dismantling of social support systems has made a lot of people very worried about their future, and as usual the rich and powerful blame immigrants (or some other weak minority group) as a slight-of-hand to distract from the actual issues.

I'm not a pharmaceutical chemist, but I've been to quite a few of their talks.

I'm really bothered by the focus on an academic group which 'investigates the effect of a particular molecule on a specific biological system, hoping that this effect will eventually help resolve a disease.' followed by following this particular molecule as 'the drug' all the way until approval.

My understanding is this omits a lot of difficult steps.

First, this is structured as the 'prototypical drug development story', but another story is that a group discovers that a given protein or other target is an important step in a given disease. Researchers at a company then evaluate it to see if they have anything which can affect that target, with none of the lead identification coming from academic. As I understand it, this is the far more common case.

Second, even the initial molecule has useful activity, it may have some other bad characteristics. The initial structure may go through a series of optimizations to, for example, reduce toxicity. The final drug may be quite different from the original "particular" molecule, perhaps only sharing some key pharmacophores.

Third, there is no mention of the process/scale-up chemistry used to turn a lab-oriented synthesis, with a lot of manual steps and waste issues, into one where 'Manufacturing authorized molecules is inexpensive'.

In the bygone era of 2008, I had fun adding Perl/Ruby-style pattern matching.

  for line in open("python_yacc.py"):
      if line =~ m/def (\w+)/:
          print repr($1)

See http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2008/0...

I started by writing a Python grammar definition based on PLY (see http://www.dabeaz.com/ply/) , then tweaked it to handle the new feature and emit the right AST. It's when I discovered the following was valid Python:

  >>> a=b=c=d=e=1
  >>> del a, (b, (c, (((((d,e)))))))

I don't think PLY can handle the newest Python grammar, but I haven't looked into it.

For what it's worth, my Python grammar was based on an older project I did called GardenSnake, which still available as a PLY example, at https://github.com/dabeaz/ply/tree/master/example/GardenSnak... .

I've been told it's was one of the few examples of how to handle an indentation-based grammar using a yacc-esque parser generator.